“Dangerous!” Her little laugh rippled out. “I thought you said you knew these parts.”
“So I do—I’m an Essex man, even though I mayn’t look it, having been half round the world.”
“Have you now? Well, it’s the big cities that are dangerous, Gran’fer says.”
“Maybe he’s right,” he admitted, wincing a little before the candid grey eyes. “But don’t you understand that a woman carrier is—” again he toned down his word—“outlandish.”
Her amusement danced in her eyes. “Inlandish, I suppose you mean.”
“Don’t laugh,” he said, forgetting that the unrevealed Will had no right to that tone. “You know it’s an unwomanly occupation.”
“Laughing?”
“You know what I mean. For one thing a woman can’t know much about horses—and she oughtn’t to have to do with ’em anyhow—it’s not natural.”
“May she have to do with donkeys?” Jinny inquired sweetly.
He frowned. “Chaff’s no good.”